Andrew Bridgen: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me this opportunity to give my maiden speech. In this debate we have heard many fine maiden speeches, all of which were well crafted and delivered. In particular, I must compliment the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) on her speech, and declare a vested interest: I am a graduate of one of her area's great universities, the university of Nottingham. I must also admit to having sampled the hospitality of Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem inn on more than one occasion.
	I took advice on what the contents of a maiden speech should be, and I was surprised by some of what I heard. I was told that my speech should have all the attributes of a lady's well-cut dress, meaning that it should be long enough to cover all the important points but still short enough to be interesting. I will try to comply with those criteria.
	Hon. Members will know that this is the first time for more than five months that this Chamber has been addressed by an hon. Member for North West Leicestershire, following the tragic and untimely death of my immediate predecessor, David Taylor, who, very sadly, passed away on Boxing day last year. I have become aware that tributes to one's predecessor are sometimes given through gritted teeth, especially when the previous Member had sat on the opposite side of the House, but that is not the case on this occasion. Although David Taylor and I often disagreed on what he did, I have always been a great admirer of the way in which he did it. At this time, when we are so keen to rebuild the public's faith in our Parliament and our parliamentarians, we could find few better examples or role models than David Taylor. When David and I agreed, we fought together for the benefit of our constituency-defending Moira fire station from closure, opposing open-cast mining at Measham, and trying to protect the green wedge from overdevelopment.
	David Taylor was born in North West Leicestershire, and he lived and worked there. He was unflinchingly loyal to his constituency, and as a result was extremely well regarded by his supporters and political opponents alike. His dedication to his work was unparalleled both in this House, where he was voted Back Bencher of the Year in 2007, and in his constituency. Given all his work against smoking and the dreaded weed, I know that he would be delighted that his successor is a reformed smoker. Our constituency is a far lesser place for his passing, and it is a privilege to be here in his stead.
	Hon. Members will recall many column inches being filled in April with speculation about the voting intentions of "middle England", but there was often confusion about exactly who that referred to. From my perspective, it referred to the people of North West Leicestershire, who are literally based in the very centre of our country; mine is possibly the most landlocked constituency in the country, surrounded as it is by eight other constituencies. North West Leicestershire is at the heart of the new national forest, where many millions of trees have been planted over the past 15 years. That fabulous countryside sits alongside the traditional and gritty mining town of Coalville and the historic market town of Ashby de la Zouch. My constituency's gently undulating countryside is both quaint and picturesque, spanning Newton Burgoland in the south and Cavendish Bridge in the north, and containing the villages of-I shall name but a few-Castle Donington, Kegworth, Moira, Measham, Ibstock, and Swannington, which is in the middle, and is where I live with my wife and children.
	However, that description belies a constituency of extremes. My late predecessor experienced many of those extremes. Imagine his surprise in 1992 when, despite polling more than 28,000 votes, he lost the election. North West Leicestershire had the highest turnout that year, with more than 85% of the electorate going to vote. However, David got the rewards for all his hard work in 1997, when he gained the biggest swing against the Conservatives in that election.
	In 2007 the pendulum swung again, this time back towards the Conservatives. We had the biggest swing against Labour in the district council elections that year, and on 6 May this year we again witnessed another 12% swing back to the Conservatives. Indeed, the chimes of the mediaeval church at Breedon on the Hill symbolised the bellwether nature of our constituency, which has always gone with the Government. I believe that when the people of North West Leicestershire have had enough of you, they come out and vote and let you know. History proves it. That was always very heartening in opposition, but I assure the House that it is slightly more worrying when I am standing in this position-which brings me back to today's debate.
	We are here to debate Europe, and I am delighted to be speaking on that subject because I love Europe. I have travelled extensively through it, at my own expense. Indeed, East Midlands airport in my constituency is our border with Europe and the world. I adore much European cuisine. I admire much of its culture, and I revel in its diversity, but I am not a supporter of European union. I was an active member of Business for Sterling in the no campaigns. I strongly support the Government's policy of placing a referendum lock on new European treaties, and indeed on anything that would give more powers away to Brussels.
	The events in Greece, which spread quickly to Spain and elsewhere, demonstrate the danger inherent in trying to pull together a disparate group of economies and cultures. We need to learn from their misfortunes and hold on to our triple A rating at all costs. I am particularly pleased that all hon. Members on this side of the House, our Liberal allies included, now appreciate that we need early deficit reduction to protect our credit rating. In my first three weeks in politics I believe that I have seen something I never thought I would see-a miracle. I think that we should call it "The Conversion of St. Vince on the Road to Whitehall".
	The consequences of not holding on to our credit rating are extremely frightening. Our economy has been run on to the rocks. Had we joined the euro, we would not just be holed below the waterline, we would also be without lifeboats. We have a huge task ahead to rescue our economy and solve the problems of 21(st)-century Britain. Sadly, we Members of this House, with a few notable exceptions-or should I say exemptions; I am thinking of my hon. Friend the Father of the House-are merely "here today, gone tomorrow" politicians. As a result, we must not consider ourselves to be the owners of sovereign powers. We are merely the custodians of power and sovereignty for future generations. Sovereignty is not ours to give away; it belongs to the people who elected us, and to their heirs and successors.
	On that basis, I am very pleased to be one of the many Members of this House who fought and argued over many years to prevent the UK from joining the euro. We Eurosceptics have often suffered the disdain of the Europhiles: at times-heaven help us-we have been called "little Englanders". As an Englishman of below average height, representing a constituency in the centre of our great country, that is an accusation that I personally find difficult to refute.
	My background is in business. I firmly believe that our country's small and medium-sized enterprises provide the backbone of our economy. If we help them, they will help to get us out of the current predicament that we find ourselves in. It is not just as a politician but also from a business perspective that my views on Europe have developed over the last 20 years. In 1997 we were the fourth most competitive place in the world in which to do business, but now we are a lowly 84th. Much of that is due to regulation from Europe. This cannot continue.
	My business has been a major employer in North West Leicestershire for many years, and I want to be a champion of business and enterprise. I shall support the creation of an environment in which public spending is managed more efficiently and the private sector is unshackled from the weight of burdensome EU regulation. I want an environment in which our country can move free from the lodestone of needless red tape, and where we can build for our future by correcting so many of the mistakes of the recent past.
	It is a privilege to stand in this House, and to serve the people of North West Leicestershire. I will do my very best not to let them down, and if at the end of my time in this place, however that may come, I am thought of anywhere near as well as my predecessor David Taylor, I will class myself as having done a very good job indeed.

Kelvin Hopkins: Indeed, that is true, but I have a wide range of tastes in music, including opera and classical. My son is even educating me in heavy metal, but that is a rather new field for me, I am afraid. I was very interested in what the hon. Member for Hove said, and I congratulate him; I am sure that he will make a fine contribution to the House over the years.
	I want to speak about the eurozone and its current problems and to reflect some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart). The eurozone is facing disaster at the moment-a disaster that some of us predicted some time ago. However, the eurozone is not the European Union, and it is quite possible to imagine the European Union without a eurozone. Indeed, I think that that is likely to be the future provided that the EU itself does not start to fragment as a result of the eurozone's troubles. I also want to emphasise, as I have time and again in the past, that Europe is not the European Union, or the European Union is not Europe; eliding the two terms is a mistake. The European Union is a political construct that has been composed, or adopted, by several of the nations of Europe, but it is not Europe. Europe is a place that, like the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), I love very much. In a few weeks' time, I shall be surrounded by the vineyards of Provence, no doubt listening to Mozart and drinking something very decent. I love Europe in every sense, even in struggling to speak French, but I am deeply critical of the European Union and think that the eurozone is a terrible mistake, as is proving to be the case.
	The eurozone is in crisis, and a very predictable one. Some 20 years ago, I wrote a paper-I used to write many papers on the EU and its economy-predicting the exchange rate mechanism debacle before we actually joined, and I proved to be exactly right. People thought I was prophetic, but anyone with a moderate knowledge of economics and a little foresight would have seen that the ERM was going to bring about a disaster. In fact, it led to the defeat of the Conservatives in 1997 and the election of a Labour Government, so for the Government side of the House it was indeed a disaster, but, unusually and unexpectedly, it brought benefits in terms of a Labour Government.
	Strong currencies derive from strong economies, not the other way round. If one tries to impose a strong currency on a weak economy, it will not survive. There are great examples of this around the world. The best one in recent years is perhaps Argentina, where people linked the peso directly and rigidly to the dollar for a period, which caused terrible mayhem inside their economy. Eventually, after some 10 years, when the economy was almost wrecked, they were forced to devalue to break that link. As a result of that devaluation, Argentina is now bouncing back, no doubt helped by its splendid wine industry. I am sure that the competitive edge that the wine industry has had because of devaluation has helped the Argentine economy to recover.
	Weak economies within the eurozone will have exactly the same problem, and we will not solve it without those countries departing from the eurozone. The first would be Greece, but others would follow. I will come to some of the problems with that in a moment. From time to time, I have met Irish politicians and suggested that their only solution is to recreate the punt, devalue and rejoin the sterling zone instead of the eurozone, because we are Ireland's major trading partner-it is essentially part of the larger economy of the British Isles. Ireland would benefit greatly from such a decision.
	Some people think that it is unrealistic to expect countries to leave the eurozone, although Angela Merkel suggested, some eight or nine weeks ago, that it should not be impossible for countries to do so. She was then roundly condemned with a fierce reaction from the French, who thought that that was an appalling thing to say, and she has now drawn back from it. However, there are those who believe that in the long run the Deutschmark will be recreated, or that there could be a Deutschmark zone that might include Holland and Luxembourg, but not much more.
	The problem is that if Greece goes, the other PIGS countries--Portugal, Ireland and Spain--will also eventually depart the euro. The problem that the French and German Governments have is that their banks are heavily exposed in lending to those countries, which would immediately devalue and start to become very competitive with stronger nations in northern Europe, particularly with the French. The French would immediately have a problem competing with Italy and Spain-their next-door neighbours--and would then eventually leave the eurozone and devalue. That would leave the German economy on its own, effectively with a currency that in real terms was much more highly valued because the others would have been devalued.
	That takes us back to what Keynes suggested in Bretton Woods. He wanted a world in which there would be stable but separate currencies and said that those countries that get into a big deficit should be able to devalue and, indeed, those countries that run big surpluses should be required to revalue. Indeed, the German economy was built for decades on an undervaluation of the Deutschmark, which is, in a sense, what has given it its strength and has enabled it to become effectively overvalued within the eurozone. Other countries cannot compete with Germany-indeed, we cannot compete with it, which is why, I think, we devalued. Despite the devaluation, we still have a massive trade deficit with Germany, but we are starting to improve and recover, because we had that opportunity.
	Because we are outside the eurozone, we have the ability to devalue-depreciate-our currency as appropriate and to choose our own monetary and fiscal policy. Those policies are interrelated-we have relations with the countries in the eurozone-but, nevertheless, we have a degree of freedom in managing our economy that countries inside the eurozone do not. If we try to impose strong currencies on weak economies, such a problem occurs.
	If we do not allow those countries to leave and dismantle the eurozone, we will see massive deflation. One cannot just expect countries such as Greece and Spain to cut their deficits and deflate their economies massively and, indeed, get rid of protection for workers, so that wages are driven down. That would merely make their economies much poorer and weaker, increase unemployment and be no good at all. The logical thing for those countries to do would be to withdraw from the eurozone, start to direct demand towards their own economies and spend time behind the effective barrier of a depreciated currency, rebuilding the strength of their economies in a realistic way.
	That is what is needed in the eurozone and that is why the eurozone is deeply flawed. It has to be dismantled and we have to build a Europe based on economies that have separate currencies, which are like shock absorbers between economies--they have to be able to adjust. If they cannot do so, those economies will be in serious trouble for a very long time. Indeed, there could be serious social unrest, the like of which we have not seen for a long time.
	In a sense, I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) was saying. We ought to look forward practically. Rather than indulging in Schadenfreude-pleasure in the pain of others-and saying, "I told you so," we should take practical steps to persuade those countries to think about dismantling the eurozone, recreating their separate currencies and progressing from there onwards in a much more practical and sensible way.